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Samuel Johnson -
Mind
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Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
Samuel Johnson
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What is read with delight is commonly retained, because pleasure always secures attention; but the books which are consulted by occasional necessity, and perused with impatience, seldom leave any traces on the mind.
Samuel Johnson
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With these [Love, Patience, Faith] celestial Wisdom calms the mind, And makes the happiness she does not find.
Samuel Johnson
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Babies do not want to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds.
Samuel Johnson
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Avarice is a uniform and tractable vice; other intellectual distempers are different in different constitutions of mind. That which soothes the pride of one will offend the pride of another, but to the favor of the covetous bring money, and nothing is denied.
Samuel Johnson
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When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed
Samuel Johnson
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As the mind must govern the hands, so in every society the man of intelligence must direct the man of labor.
Samuel Johnson
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Among the anfractuosities of the human mind, I know not if it may not be one, that there is a superstitious reluctance to sit for a picture.
Samuel Johnson
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There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful occurrence, than the death of one we have injured without reparation.
Samuel Johnson
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If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur.
Samuel Johnson
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Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.
Samuel Johnson
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Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind,
Obedient passions, and a will resigned
Samuel Johnson
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No mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.
Samuel Johnson
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But, perhaps, the flatterer is not often detected; for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one exerts the power of discernment with much vigour when selflove favors the deceit.
Samuel Johnson
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Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.
Samuel Johnson
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It ought to be deeply impressed on the minds of all who have voices in this national deliberation, that no man can deserve a seat in parliament, who is not a patriot. No other man will protect our rights: no other man can merit our confidence.
A patriot is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single motive, the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but refers every thing to the common interest.
Samuel Johnson
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The love of retirement has, in all ages, adhered closely to those minds which have been most enlarged by knowledge, or elevated by genius.
Samuel Johnson
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Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Samuel Johnson
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Few moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking.
Samuel Johnson
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The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time. The widest excursions of the mind are made by short flights frequently repeated; the most lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continued accumulation of single propositions.
Samuel Johnson
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Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend.
Samuel Johnson
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"Some," answered Imlac, "have indeed said that the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it, who knew how to think; for all the conclusions of reason enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations of science, concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter.
Samuel Johnson
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The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
Samuel Johnson
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A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind, but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind.
Samuel Johnson
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Timidity is a disease of the mind, obstinate and fatal; for a man once persuaded that any impediment is insuperable has given it, with respect to himself, that strength and weight which it had not before.
Samuel Johnson
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Quote of the day
Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.
Martin Luther
Samuel Johnson
Creative Commons
Born:
September 18, 1709
Died:
December 13, 1784
(aged 75)
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